Yaroslava Shvedova opens on how winning Wimbledon felt surreal for weeks

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Former Kazakh tennis player Yaroslava Shvedova revealed for weeks it felt surreal for her that she had won Wimbledon. In 2010, Shvedova and American partner Vania King won the Wimbledon women's doubles title. As a kid, Shvedova dreamed of winning Wimbledon and in 2010 her dreams became a reality.

Two months later, Shvedova and King captured the US Open title. “A couple of weeks after [Wimbledon], we were still pinching ourselves,” Shvedova told the WTA website. “We were saying, ‘Do you understand that we won Wimbledon?’ “We could not believe, in our heads, that we had won Wimbledon, because since you are a child, it is so far and unreachable.

Then, when you reach it, you cannot understand it and digest it, in a way”.

Shvedova recalls earning a place at the London Olympics

Shvedova was eager to earn a spot for the 2012 London Olympics and she did so at the last moment.

“I was playing qualification and hoping to win just one round, praying to God, because for the last two months I had been losing first round,” she said. “I had given up on the idea of qualifying for the Olympics, my first Olympics, in London.

I thought that there was no chance, but round by round, I qualified and won rounds in the main draw. “And then playing the defending champion [Li Na] when I am a qualifier, and the night before finding out that if I beat her, I would qualify for the Olympics, there was a lot of energy there.

“This information pushed me to fight to the end. Like a bulldog, I never let her go, beating her. I was the last one into the London Olympics”. Shvedova, a former world No. 25, announced her retirement from professional tennis during last week's Astana Open in Nur-Sultan.